


ready oar not

by tinyspoons



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Neil POV, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, implied dadvid, not really sure what else to tag tbh, rated T for bad words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 10:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20872571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyspoons/pseuds/tinyspoons
Summary: It's ass o'clock in the morning and David is way too cheery - accidents are bound to happen.





	ready oar not

**Author's Note:**

> i've had the tab open for the next chapter of this for almost a year now lol it's halfway done and yet i sit and i do not write.
> 
> again, I know jack shit about ambulance procedures, medical procedures, or anything that would require me to have half a brain so sorry for any inaccuracies.

“Alllllrightie kids, glad to see everyone’s already awake and alert!” David chirped, his unnecessary cheeriness bleeding over from the evening to the early morning, when he had no business being _that_ cheery. The sun wasn’t even completely alert yet, it’s rays had barely stretched over the horizon, painting the sky a mural of pink and orange. It was quieter than normal, all variety of animals still asleep, except the gentle twitter of birds. Dew shone on the grass. It was a peaceful scene, beautiful, and something Neil would have been perfectly okay with missing if it meant a few more hours of sleep.

“Awake and alert, my ass! It’s ass o’clock in the morning, why the fuck are we awake? And none of us are _alert_,” Neil said, and threw an arm out to gesture at the rest of his campers, sure that he was right, and of course, he was. Max didn’t even seem to be bothering with words, only glaring at anyone who even made eye contact with him. Preston and Nurf were practically falling asleep on each other, a clear sign that neither of them knew where they were or what was going on. Harrison’s hat was sliding down his head, the rim over his eyes, and he didn’t bother to move it back up. Nerris was rolling a pair of die in her hands, yawning as she did. Dolf, as he watched, stretched, his hands saluting in a way Neil would really rather not see. Nikki and Space Kid were passed out on the grass, Nikki snoring loudly and Space Kid drooling into his helmet.

David’s face fell only slightly as he took in the sight, slowly processing that yes, most if not all of his campers were asleep. He didn’t even tell Neil off for cursing. “We-”

“HEY!” A shout from Gwen made Neil start and he swiveled around quickly, glaring harshly at her. What part if _it was too early for this bullshit_ did no one get?

The yell was loud enough to wake up the rest of the sleeping campers - to a degree - as well, and Neil was glad that he wasn’t the only glaring at the two counselors. Gwen looked unbothered by it, however, and she leveled them all with an unimpressed look. “Pay attention. We’re rowing today.”

David looked significantly more intimidated by the full force of their glares - usually it wasn’t _all_ the campers glaring at him at once, after all, usually it only a few of them in small doses - but he still managed his same bright and cheery tone that grated more and more on Neil’s nerves the more that David’s spoke. “Thaaat’s right! Everyone choose a buddy and stand next to a boat, and I’ll get the oars. While I do that, Gwen will go over the safety rules-”

_”What?”_ Gwen hissed at David, cutting him off. 

“Please, Gwen,” David said, eyes wide. “I’ll do all the teaching. Just go over the safety.” 

Gwen glared at him for only a second longer (David really did have a talent for irking people - today was the first day _absolutely everyone_ in the camp was glaring at him) before sighing and giving into his pleas. “Fine. But _only_ the safety.”

“Thank you!” David said, already dashing off towards the Shed of Things, as Max, Neil, and Nikki had dubbed it after numerous escapades into it to search for the perfect tool to stab the Quartermaster with, spray paint the tents with, or to escape the camp with (only one of those were successful, unfortunately). Neil was pretty sure that they had also done something with the oars, at some point, destroying two. Hopefully David wouldn’t notice.

Gwen sighed into her hands, before turning up and looking at the once-again-falling-asleep campers. Neil braced himself for-

“HEY, WAKE UP!” Neil groaned along with the rest of the kids, but Gwen had no problem talking over them. “Down to the docks, go stand next to a boat with a buddy.” 

“Fuck this,” Max muttered, making to turn around, and honestly, that sounded a great idea. Neil made to follow him, only for Gwen to place herself in front of his path and glare down at him. (The glare hadn’t faded off of anyone’s face in that time, really, and Neil had half a mind to tell David that this is what fucking happens when you wake people up before 5am.)

“No. We’re going rowing. No more of your bullshit this early.”

“You wouldn’t _have_ to deal with my bullshit this early in the morning if you hadn’t _woken me up this early in the morning,_” Max said, matching Gwen’s glare right back. 

The two stood off for a minute, and while at a normal time of day, Neil would have rolled his eyes and moved on, right now he took the excuse to not follow the others’ tired trudge up to the docks. The stand off lasted only a minute before Gwen broke, heaving another heavy sigh. “Look Max, I don’t want to be up this early either. So just go to the docks, and then you can go back to sleep when we’re done.” 

“Fine,” Max said, whipping around on his heel and strolling back towards the docks. Neil had enough sense to know that that meant there would be some sort of destruction wrecked in the next hour. Finally, something interesting.

So he partnered up with Max on the boats, managing to distract Nikki and Dolf away from their boat and taking their place so they wouldn’t have to have the boat with _THE WOOD SCOUTS_ written on the side. Nerris and Harrison and somehow managed to get themselves partnered together again, as had Preston and Nurf. Neil wondered why they never switched partners - both of the pairs looked absolutely miserable - but when he suggested it to Nerris and Harrison, both of them looked at him incredulously, as if, even despite hating each other’s company, they really could never imagine being partnered with anyone else. 

Gwen began reciting what Neil could only assume were the safety guidelines, as absolutely everyone tuned her out to have their own side conversations. Nikki whispered to Dolf in quiet tones for only a minute before Dolf went to Nerris and Nikki came over to them, glimmer in her (baggy) eyes indicating that she had also seen Max and Gwen’s exchange and that she knew exactly what was about to go down. “So, what’s the plan?” 

“What plan?” Max said, tone bland and face open, eyes wide. His innocent face. 

Neil raised an eyebrow, and Nikki sputtered, “You know what plan.” 

The innocent act immediately dropped, and his face matched Nikki’s in an instant, smirk lighting up his features. “Well-”

“I’m back!” David called, arms full of oars (and side glance at the three of them in a huddle signifying that he did know about the oars. Oops). “Here are the oars! One per person. And remember what Gwen said about handling them!” 

Probably not important - they wouldn’t be getting anywhere near rowing, if the steadily happier and happier grin on Max’s face had to do with anything. David had just finished passing out the oars when Max, innocent expression and tone firmly back in place, called out, “Hey, David?” 

“Yes, Max?” David said, also looking suspicious. He finally had learned to read Max’s danger looks, it seemed. 

“Well, I-”

He was cut off by a dull _thunk_ sound as something hard hit something else, and then Max was on the floor, David by his side in a flash, Gwen next to him with her phone out, hovering over the dial buttons. It took Neil a minute to process what had happened ina few seconds: Nikki had turned around to see what Max was going to do, resting the length of the oar on her shoulder, and it had smacked Max right in the back of the head.

Nikki dropped the oar from her shoulder and rushed over to Max, saying, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, oh my god Max-”

Neil stood still for a few more minutes, before dashing over to Max’s crumpled for as well, his eyes wide as he shook Max. “Max? Max, are you okay?” It took him a few more minutes to realize that he wasn’t the only one calling his name, and that the entire camp had crowded around Max, calling his name, shaking him, poking him, and he _still wasn’t waking up-_

“Get back and be quiet!” Gwen called, not as loud as she had been earlier, but it was twice as effective. Except . . . it wasn’t Gwen that had yelled. 

It was David, the David who never yelled at them. 

It was probably the shock of it - both David’s yell and Max’s collapse and subsequent not-waking-up - that shut Neil and the rest of the campers up as they started at David and Gwen with wide, frightened eyes. Neil was glad to see that, at least, he was not the only one. 

David was digging through Max’s hair, for some reason, and Neil wanted to yell at him, wanted to ask what the fuck he was doing and why he wasn’t trying to wake Max up, but the words weren’t coming. 

Gwen shook Max and yelled at him to wake up, the only one doing something useful, and when, after a few seconds, he didn’t respond, not even to make a little noise, she pulled her phone back out. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

“Tell him that he’s bleeding, too,” David said, grim in a way David’s voice should never have sounded, and as he pulled his hand away from Max’s hair, Neil could finally see what he was doing. His hand came back splattered with red, and as Neil stared at his hands with steadily growing eyes, he wondered if Max was going to die. He didn’t ask. He didn’t want to hear the answer.

“Is he going to die?” Nikki asked for him, instead. 

“No, he’s not,” David said firmly. “Someone go get bandages from the Mess Hall.” When none of them moved, David said, louder, “Now!” 

Neil ran towards the Mess Hall with a start, only to find that Dolf and Nurf were following him. Dolf looked determined, and in a short while his small legs had propelled him in front of Neil, although both of them were behind Nurf, who was wearing a face that Neil had, again, never seen on him: concern. 

Today was a day for firsts, it seemed, although Neil would trade all of the new things he had thought he would never see or hear to have Max _not_ bleeding and not waking up and crumpled on the floor-

He slowed, suddenly feeling very nauseous. He stood for a minute, wondering if he should go empty his guts in the bushes, before his attention was drawn by Gwen running to the front of the camp, very decidedly not where Max or anything important was. He stopped - Nurf and Dolf had it covered - and ran over to her instead. “Where are you going?” 

“To the front. Someone needs to tell the paramedics where Max is when they get here. I don’t know if we should move him,” Gwen said, barely panting.

Neil remembered reading up on concussions and head injuries. He should have realized what to do as soon as Max was hit, but even now that he was consciously trying to think of what to do, nothing was coming to him. Stupid, stupid, stupid, didn’t he realize that Max _needed_ him for once? 

“I’ll- I’ll come with you,” he said, instead of saying anything about his inability to do absolutely anything to help Max. He didn’t think he could see Max’s <s>body</s> form on the ground again. 

They stopped right by the road, and Gwen peered down either side of the street. “They should be here in only a couple minutes.”

“What? But it took us ten minutes to get to the closest hospital last time.” Too long, much too long.

“David obeys the speed limit,” Gwen said, pointing at a conveniently located speed limit sign. _30 MPH._

That was it? No wonder it took forever. An ambulance could come here in half that time, probably less. (Thankfully, thankfully.)

It was barely thirty seconds later that Neil hear the siren sounds, thirty seconds after that for the ambulance to come into sight. When the EMTs and paramedics jumped out, Gwen was off in a flash, telling them what had happened and where Max was. They were at a brisk jog, but their legs were longer, and Neil had to run to keep up with them, but he still lagged behind, and so when he arrived at the scene Max was no longer on the ground but being lifted onto a stretcher, above his head so Neil couldn’t see anything but the stain of red under the cloth. 

He tried to ask if Max would be okay, but he couldn’t be heard over the flurry of activity, and he found himself being hustled to the side, more and more of the campers joining him as they realized their attempts to ask the paramedics anything were fruitless.

It was over with the same rush it had began with, and suddenly, the beautiful sky and the peaceful scene and the damn _tranquility_ was stifling. 

Gwen dragged a hand over her face and walked over to them. They all stared up at her with big eyes, and Neil wasn’t afraid to admit he probably looked more than a little scared. No one looked more distraught than Nikki, however, and as Neil looked over at her he realized that for the first time her eyes were shiny not with mischief but with tears. “Is Max going to be okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to!” 

Gwen only kneeled down and engulfed Nikki into her arms, something that looked very warm and nice and comforting right now. “He’ll be fine, don’t worry, it’s okay.” 

Space Kid was the first to walk over and wrap his arms around Nikki. Gwen adjusted her hold so her arms were more open, and Preston and Nerris took it as an invitation to join the hug. Harrison joined not soon after, along with Dolf, and Neil hesitated for only a minute after that before deciding, fuck it, and joining it too. He could feel others piling up behind and around him, but he didn’t look up, only wrapped his arms tighter around the person in front of him - Harrison - and squeezed his eyes shut. 

It lasted for a solid minute, before someone coughed and that startled all of them back away from each other, pushing each other away as if just touching each other would contaminate them somehow. Neil averted his eyes from the rest of the campers, especially Harrison - that was something he’d have to delete from his memory, along with the whole nightmare of a day. Nothing good came from too early in the morning, after all.

“Where’s David?” came Ered’s voice from somewhere behind him.

“He went into the ambulance with Max to talk to his parents,” Gwen said, sweeping a look over them. “Back to bed, then.” At their protests, she added, “You guys were complaining about earlier, and now that we’re not rowing, there’s no point in you still being awake. The sun’s not up yet.”

The way words came back to bite you in the ass, Neil supposed. He laid down and stared at the ceiling for an hour before sleep came, red bleeding into his vision just as Max had bled all over the grass that morning. He didn’t sleep well.

**Author's Note:**

> does this sound like it should be continued? hell yeah. was I hoping I could get as much dadvid into this, not just with max but with all the campers: absolutely of fucking course. did I do that to my satisfaction? ofc not. should you bully me into continuing so I can do that? yeah probably.
> 
> 7/14/20: hello everyone :D i'm transferring some of these works from one account to another, so tinyspoons and caffeine101 are both me, to clear up any confusion as to who is answering comments as the author lmao.


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